Its effect on business has been similarly wide ranging. And today, for mission-critical data, Internet-based computing--aka cloud computing--is introducing major changes to the way work is done.

Whether you're ready to move your business operations to the cloud full time or just want to dip a toe in the water vapor, cloud integration offers significant benefits. Specifically:

You have access to data that lives in the cloud from any PC, regardless of where you are. All you need is a connection to the Internet and a Web browser.

For data in the cloud, companies like Google provide offsite data redundancy that's stronger than the backups most business users have in place. If your hard drive crashes or if your computer vanishes, you don't need to worry that your data has gone missing with it.

With the right tools, you can have your data in the cloud in no time--and it will still play nicely with your desktop, laptop, or smartphone.

Don't Make Me Ditch Microsoft Office!

The Internet has certainly changed the way people work, but desktop applications continue to outperform the Web on a number of fronts--especially in the business world. Fortunately, you can take advantage of the cloud without ditching desktop apps altogether. With the right tools and know-how, you can pair your significant business apps and data with the Web to keep everything in sync, accessible from any browser, and backed up to the cloud.

Note: There are more options for syncing data to the cloud than we can highlight in one article. Our focus here is on some of the most popular and trustworthy options--and in general, that means a large number of Google applications.

Microsoft Office Live

Since businesses tend to create lots of documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, you probably use Microsoft Office regularly. Most Web alternatives still haven't come close to matching the power of the Microsoft Office suite. But you do have a couple of good options for integrating the most popular Office apps with the Web.

Microsoft’s own Office Live Workspace bridges the gap between your favorite Office apps and the Web.Microsoft's own Office Live Workspace service works with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint; it aims to eliminate your need to carry a thumb drive, by letting you to store any of the three types of Office documents on the Live Workspace Website.

When you save a document to Live Workspace, you can view it from any browser, share it with other people in your workspace, and edit it on your desktop with Microsoft Office. The files are stored online on Microsoft's servers, but you can open, edit, and save them with your desktop Office applications just as though they're on your hard drive.

Google Docs

If you prefer Google Docs (Google's suite of online office applications) to Live Workspace, a couple of tools can help you sync your desktop Office apps with Google Docs.

Easily access and edit any Word, Excel, or PowerPoint document from your desktop or from Google Docs with Memeo Connect.The first, Memeo Connect, syncs any document between your desktop and Google Docs. You can choose to edit the documents locally in Office or online in Google Docs; either way, Memeo Connect will keep your local Office documents constantly in sync with Google Docs.

If you do a lot of collaboration, a better option may be OffiSync. Once installed, OffiSync works much like Memeo Connect, allowing you to view and edit any document on your desktop or within Google Docs.

OffiSync pays a little more attention to collaboration, so users can work on the same document at the same time, and any changes that one user saves will instantly merge with the version of the document that the other user has open.